Review: Snagit 9 utility software

Snagit can capture the screen of a computer as a graphical image that can then be saved or sent to friends, family or technical support people.

The latter is the main reason home users would want to do such a thing – in fact, it’s particularly useful, when trying to help diagnose an error on someone else’s computer, to be able to see the error as it happened.

Windows can capture the screen using the Print Screen button, or part of it (Alt and Print Screen captures the current window) and you can then paste the resulting image into a document, email or photo-editing program.

But Snagit 9 offers considerably more than that. Now in its ninth edition, the program offers the traditional ability to capture the screen or a window. But it also captures video, so that you can record a computer tutorial, for instance, as well as web pages (it automatically scrolls pages to get the whole content) and it can even automatically save all the images found on a website.

The program is very easy to use, with bright, large, clear buttons that explain what they do and a big red capture button to begin.

It’s flexible, too – selecting a window to capture is a matter of hovering the mouse over the screen – it shows a red box over the area it thinks you want to capture, so when it’s over the right one, click the mouse.

It can be set up for timed captures, can automatically save or email the captured image, or you can edit or annotate it.

Like most capture software it can’t capture what’s in overlay mode. This includes most video, movies played from DVD, television through a tuner card, or games. If you try, you’ll just see a black space instead. That’s really a problem of the computer rather than Snagit, though. In this mode, the computer is effectively sending the video straight to the screen to improve performance, so Snagit can’t see it.

Snagit 9 is a thorough, flexible, powerful screen capture tool. Our only complaint is that it’s of limited use. There aren’t many home users who’ll need all the features and who find the Windows print-screen function too limiting. If you’re one of them, though, this is the program to get.